4 ms·

This has to be the biggest pivot I've seen in my life. A truly epic reworking of an entire company from successful business model A to successful business mode

This has to be the biggest pivot I've seen in my life. A truly epic reworking of an entire company from successful business model A to successful business model B -- both wildly successful. And really there was a second pivot too: from streaming platform to original content studio. It's a great reminder to focus on what value you bring to your customers (watching videos), not on any particular business model or way of doing business.

pavon 4y ago
The way I heard it, Netflix started with the intent of being a streaming company but found it more difficult than expected so they pivoted to mailing DVDs, but continued to work on the streaming in the background until the market forces made it viable to pivot back (licensing, residential internet speeds, etc).
- paxys 4y ago
  They may have had an idea for it in their heads, sure, but in the mid 90s (when they started their business) online video streaming was very, very far from reality. This was before the first online stream, before RealPlayer, before Broadcast.com. None of the mainstream video compression standards existed. You couldn't even stream video over ethernet back then. It was only the internet infrastructure upgrades over the next decade which made it feasible for general consumers.
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    I think the public-facing story of Netflix's start in 1997 (that DVDs came out in 1997 and they looked like they would be easy/cheap to ship). But, the the first version of realvideo was released in early 1997. I remember using it to watch pirated streaming video of Star Wars special edition and South Park season 1 (I just checked and those were both in 1997). It was acceptable quality (slightly worse than VHS or video CD) if you had a cable modem.
m463 4y ago
I have to say, as a current dvd subscriber, that I feel more abandonment than pivot.

pavon 4y ago

The way I heard it, Netflix started with the intent of being a streaming company but found it more difficult than expected so they pivoted to mailing DVDs, but continued to work on the streaming in the background until the market forces made it viable to pivot back (licensing, residential internet speeds, etc).

paxys 4y ago
They may have had an idea for it in their heads, sure, but in the mid 90s (when they started their business) online video streaming was very, very far from reality. This was before the first online stream, before RealPlayer, before Broadcast.com. None of the mainstream video compression standards existed. You couldn't even stream video over ethernet back then. It was only the internet infrastructure upgrades over the next decade which made it feasible for general consumers.
- johnwalkr 4y ago
  I think the public-facing story of Netflix's start in 1997 (that DVDs came out in 1997 and they looked like they would be easy/cheap to ship). But, the the first version of realvideo was released in early 1997. I remember using it to watch pirated streaming video of Star Wars special edition and South Park season 1 (I just checked and those were both in 1997). It was acceptable quality (slightly worse than VHS or video CD) if you had a cable modem.

m463 4y ago

I have to say, as a current dvd subscriber, that I feel more abandonment than pivot.